


Greensleeves

by grumby



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: He's the red robe, Merle is a lich
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:14:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24722893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grumby/pseuds/grumby
Summary: Kravitz realises he can feel the holy glow of a Zone of Truth. The lich has cast Zone of Truth? What kind of lich casts Zone of Truth?!“Oh, a Reaper, huh? I bet that’s fun,” the lich says. “Real sense of job satisfaction there, I reckon.”Kravitz has never seen a lich like this before, and he's seen a lot of liches. Merle is just trying to save the universe, thanks very much.
Comments: 36
Kudos: 124





	Greensleeves

Kravitz has never seen a lich like this before. He didn’t know there _were_ liches like this. 

It has a skull, as liches so often do, but the eyes aren’t an evil red or yellow – they're lime-green. Vines, barbed with vicious looking thorns, wreath its temples in a tiara of spines. The floating, ethereal robe is whole, not the tattered rags most liches wear, but most fascinatingly it’s ever-changing; Kravitz watches as it fades from the dark, juniper green of moss growing on a leaf-covered forest floor to the yellow-green hue of oak leaves catching the summer sun. 

It’s not killing anyone. It isn’t looking for any powerful artefacts. It’s not on an unhinged quest for knowledge. It’s sitting, quietly, reading, in a clearing. The only noise is the babbling of the nearby stream. 

Kravitz stays quiet. A lich this – this – this weird must be insanely powerful, and he’d like to do some reconnaissance before storming in. 

He watches as the lich turns the page of its book. It’s got skeletal hands, but they’re the colour of dark mahogany – each bone is ornately carved wood. 

What is this lich? He should be able to feel the waves of necromantic power radiating off the thing. It’s sickening, normally, and liches have to ward their surroundings to hide the uncontrollable flares of energy. But this? Kravitz feels the opposite – he feels nourished, as if it’s sustaining itself on life, not death, and – he looks around – there's clearly no wards in place to hide that nauseating necrotic energy. They’re in a public park, for the Queen’s sake! 

“I know you’re over there,” the lich says, not looking up from his book. “You might as well come on out.” 

Kravitz frowns and stands up from behind the tree stump he’d been crouched behind, taking a step into the clearing. His heart doesn’t beat, he doesn’t breathe – how had this lich known he was there? 

“It’s hard to spy on someone who can feel you disturbing nature. The way you stand on the grass, the way the animals avoid you. M’name’s Merle,” the lich says as if it can read his mind. “What about you?” 

“Kravitz,” he says. Feel nature? It’s hardly the most powerful ability he’s ever seen a lich wield, but it’s sure weird. Kravitz scans the lich up and down for the telltale signs of instability. There are no sparks, no crackling, no glitching voice. It seems incredibly well put-together. 

“And why are you watching me, Kravitz? Normally the only things that give me eyes like that are my geraniums.” 

“I’m a Reaper for the Raven Queen, and you’re my mission,” Kravitz’s mouth says without waiting for his brain. He bites his tongue. What happened there? Normally he’d try to be a bit more subtle. 

Then Kravitz realises he can feel the holy glow of a Zone of Truth. The lich has cast Zone of Truth? What kind of lich casts Zone of Truth?! 

“Oh, a Reaper, huh? I bet that’s fun,” the lich says. “Real sense of job satisfaction there, I reckon.” 

Kravitz stands. Oh well, since stealth has gone out the window - 

His scythe appears in his hands, his flesh melting off his skull. He prestidigitates a dramatic breeze to catch his cloak, which flaps behind him. “Undead abomination!” He shouts, in his best spooky voice. “By decree of the Raven Queen, I charge you with -” 

“Is your skeleton cockney?” Merle asks, utterly unintimidated. “You definitely didn’t sound like fantasy Dick van Dyke a moment ago.” He does stand up – or float up – and lower the book, but he doesn’t seem at all worried. 

“What, I – no, it’s a work accent,” Kravitz scowls. 

Merle chuckles. “We’ve all been there,” he says, and Kravitz knows he’s the one who just did a work accent but he also can’t imagine that Merle has ever been there. 

He glowers at him. Okay, if he can’t sneak up on this lich, and he can’t intimidate him... 

He steps in close for a swipe without any further ceremony, but the lich holds up his book, which Kravitz realises too late is a bible, and - 

Wham. 

Kravitz is flat on his ass. An enormous angel stands over him, wielding a shield and brandishing a sword threateningly. He doesn’t move. 

The lich chuckles to himself and snaps the bible shut. He holds the book out into the air as if putting it on a shelf, and when he releases it, it vanishes before it can fall. “Thanks, Della Reese.” He leans over to mock-whisper to Kravitz. “Don’t tell her this, it’d hurt her feelings, but I meant to cast Shield of Faith, not Guardian of Faith. I’m hopeless without my glasses, you know how it is.” 

“What?” Kravitz asks, incredulous. “Those spells aren’t even the same school, they’re not remotely similar, I –” 

The lich waves his protest away. “Well, you know, through Pan all things are possible.” 

Pan? Kravitz is well and truly confused now. Normally liches have demons or dark gods as patrons, not – not the god of plants! He looks up, and, sure enough, the angel’s shield is emblazoned with the pipes of Pan. Kravitz wants to cry. This was supposed to be a routine mission! 

The lich seems absolutely oblivious to his confusion. “Isn’t it beautiful, here? I mean, look at this. The trees, the grass, the river... It’s perfect.” 

Kravitz tries to shuffle backwards, but Della Reese adjusts her grip on her sword threateningly, and Kravitz stops dead. 

"I appreciate the company, you know,” Merle says, as if they’re on a picnic. As if Kravitz isn’t being held at sword-point. “Been a while since I’ve had anyone to talk to.” 

Kravitz scowls. “Why’s that? The rest of your necromantic circle get arrested? You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t sound sympathetic, abomination.” 

“Necromancy?” Merle chuckles. It’s a warm sound, somehow, fitting his calm aura, but not his freakish appearance. “You think I’m a necromancer?” 

“You’re a lich,” Kravitz says. “Obviously you’re a necromancer.” 

Merle waves a hand, and Della Reese fades away, giving Kravitz one last threatening glare before vanishing. “Nah. Here, come sit with me.” He floats lower to the ground to give the appearance he’s sitting, and for all the world he seems to be looking away from Kravitz. 

Kravitz _should_ take the opportunity to attack. He should take this lich’s soul while his back is turned and let it burn off its sin in the eternal stockade, and then he can go home and sleep off the stress migraine he’s got coming on. 

Instead, he leaves his scythe where it fell, and sits next to the lich. Despite himself, he’s curious. Besides, this lich could’ve destroyed his physical form while he was laid out, and Kravitz should return the favour. He suspects he wouldn’t get very far trying to attack him anyway. 

“Pan is, y’know, multifaceted,” Merle says. “He’s not just the god of plants. He’s the god of spring, of life, of rebirth. He’s the god of ducklings and baby rabbits and eggs.” The lich sighs, and points to the river. “It’s sad to see his domain defiled, don’tcha think?” 

Kravitz watches an empty bottle of Fantasy Coke bob downstream, but the lich holds out a hand and clicks those carved wooden fingers and the bottle turns into a duck with a scarlet head and pastel blue plumage. It looks around, flaps its wings, and takes off. Merle must see the look of incredulity on Kravitz’s face, because he laughs and says, “Plastics are made from oil, and oil was alive, once. It’s all dinosaurs crushed up, you know.” He seems to consider for a second. “Sure hope that one wasn’t an invasive species.” 

“Anyway, the point is, every version of Pan I’ve seen has been different,” he continues as if he hadn’t just performed a high-level transmutation. “Each time, something different is emphasised. Sometimes, he’s a weed-smoking hippie, like here.” The skull seems to grin even wider as he says that, and those green orbs of light glance at him from the corner of his eye sockets. 

Kravitz’s mouth hangs open. What the fuck is this lich talking about? He’s blaspheming against his own god! Every version of Pan? There’s only one version of Pan! 

“Sometimes, he’s angry. When people forget Pan, and they build factories that belch smog and ooze oil into the drinking water, he gets mad. He fights back. Nature reclaims everything, eventually,” the lich sighs unhappily. “But other times,” his green eyes twinkle in a way Kravitz is starting to understand as a grin, “he’s a harvester, providing food for the people, sustaining life around the world. Sometimes, he emphasises new beginnings. Just like how a duck lays an egg, and then that egg grows into a duck, which lays an egg. Second chances, you get it?” 

A perfect, white daisy sprouts from the ground, growing in an instant, and Merle plucks it, deftly weaving it into the wreath of vines that adorns his skull. 

“But, most important of all,” Merle fixes him with a penetrating gaze, “his domain is the world. Life. Everywhere there’s anything. Even in the deserts and the arctic, there’s - y’know, scorpions and polar bears and stuff, and his magic oozes through their veins. The whole planet is Pan’s dominion, and he doesn’t like when it’s under threat.” 

He turns back towards the river. “What I’m trying to say here is that Pan is a hell of a lot more complex than you might think. So, when he blessed me with this form, hell, who was I to say no?” 

“You - Pan made you a lich?” 

Merle seems sad, for a moment, and it’s the first time Kravitz hasn’t felt the warmness that emanates off him. He seems – shut off, cold. His robe slowly fades from that leafy, oak tree green to the grey-green of pine needles on a winter’s day as he mulls over his next words. “No one alive could do the job I have to do,” he says. “This - it’s not easy. And I have to do it alone. There isn’t anyone else.” And then the smile in his voice comes back and he says, “but that just means Pan trusts me. He chose me to get it done. And I trust Pan to provide.” 

Kravitz isn’t sure where he stands, now. He’s never heard of a deity physically making someone a lich, before. Normally, people do it to themselves in service of their patron. He guesses it would go some way to explaining why Merle is so... weird. But, is he still a death criminal? If he didn’t ask to be made a lich, he’s technically a victim of a ritual performed against his will, and not a necromancer himself. But he is still a lich. And, Kravitz reminds himself, Merle Highchurch has died 57 times. 

Merle holds out his bony, wooden hand and casts Zone of Truth again. This time, having seen it happen, Kravitz manages to roll high enough to negate the effects, but he notices the golden tinge of magic settling on Merle – he willingly failed his check. 

“I’m not a necromancer. Hell, I’m a cleric!” Merle laughs. “And not even a great one, at that. But I can promise you I mean you no harm, and I never intentionally broke any of your laws.” He pauses for a moment as if considering how much to tell him. “There’s something coming, Kravitz. Pan knows it; he can feel it leeching the life from this world. If it gets here, it’ll mean the end of everything.” He says it with a frown, but then he laughs. “I’d guess that your god needs to talk to my god, and maybe we’ll find out we’re on the same side.” 

Kravitz would believe him, even without the Zone of Truth up. There’s something about this lich... 

“I need – I need to talk to the Queen about this,” he says. “This is a long way above my pay grade.” 

The lich stands – or, at least, stops floating lower than usual – and gives him an appraising look. “Well, it really was nice having the company. Been a while since I’ve had anyone to talk to.” He laughs again. “Here’s hopin’ that next time I see ya it won’t be with a scythe in your hands.” 

And Merle seems to fade into the background. His cloak changes colour to match the forest and the river and the sky behind him until he’s simply gone. His skull is the last thing to disappear, and the floating orbs of light in his eyes seem to wink as he finally vanishes, leaving just a faint smell of cut grass and lavender. 

Kravitz stands and brushes his suit down, collecting his scythe. He’s almost ready to leave when he sees a single bud push through the soil where the lich had been stood, growing to full maturity in a matter of seconds. It bursts into bloom – a single, pitch black rose. It’s not flawless, like the flowers that grow in the Astral Plane, but somehow its imperfections only add to its startling beauty. Kravitz considers cutting it, but even the thought of it seems somehow like a desecration. He gazes at it for a moment longer, and turns to cut a portal to the Astral Plane. 

Somehow, he already knows what his Queen will say.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! I really hope you enjoyed this! I started thinking about how the rest of the crew would look as liches and this idea just wouldn't leave me... I was imagining this as a universe where Barry and Lup don't become liches, and so Istus has to pull some strings with the other gods to get someone to play the Red Robe's role. I also figured that Barry was hiding from Kravitz for, like, ten years, and there's no way it'd take that long for the prophesied Peacemaker to solve the problem lol
> 
> Anyway, I don't really write Merle a lot so I hope his characterisation was good! I'll be back with some more alien AU on Thursday, so if you enjoyed this maybe go check it out? Thanks for reading!


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